Active wear, such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, jogging suits and the like are intended to be worn during periods of heavy activity, such as during sports or exercise. During such activity, the wearer will perspire, and clothing made of cotton or other materials will become saturated with perspiration. When the activity or exercise is extended over a longer period of time, the clothing will be unable to absorb the perspiration from the body, and beads of perspiration will run down the wearer's body inside the garment. As a result, existing active and leisure wear clothing, that is, clothing suitable for use during sports and exercise, will become progressively more uncomfortable to the wearer as the activity is extended.
Knitted fabrics have been developed which have two or three layers of material knitted together, but such fabrics have not resulted in clothing which will be more comfortable during heavy physical activity.
Two examples of existing multi-layer fabrics are Okada, U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,873 and Lumb, U.S. Pat. No. 5,312,667. The fabric disclosed in Okada provides certain moisture absorbing qualities, but includes an outer insulating layer and inner moisture absorbing layers. Garments made from the fabric of Okada will absorb only a certain quantity of moisture but the insulating layer will greatly limit its ability to dissipate moisture through evaporation. It would be desirable to provide a fabric the inner surface of which is adapted to wick large quantities of perspiration during activity and transfer the perspiration to an outer layer away from the body of the wearer.